SUPO’s 2026 National Security Overview warns that China is weaponising Finnish servers for third-country cyber attacks while Russia prepares to redirect post-war resources toward European influence operations
By TRH World Desk
New Delhi, March 10, 2026 —Finland’s Security and Intelligence Service (SUPO) has released its National Security Overview for 2026, delivering one of its starkest warnings yet — Russia and China remain the principal threats to Finnish national security, with Finland identified as a target for continuous and active espionage operations from both countries.
The report, presented to Finland’s parliamentary intelligence oversight committee on Tuesday by SUPO Director Juha Martelius, arrives at a moment of heightened anxiety across Europe. Martelius described Russia as “an aggressive, expansionist state prepared to use all means to achieve its political goals,” with no signs of improvement in sight.
China’s Expanding Threat: Cyber, Arctic and Global Influence
The 2026 overview significantly expands its treatment of the Chinese threat. SUPO’s report warns that China is actively exploiting Finnish digital infrastructure — servers leased from Finnish data centres and compromised consumer network devices — to conduct cyber operations against third countries, effectively turning Finland into a launchpad for Beijing’s broader intelligence campaigns.
Chinese intelligence services specifically target foreign and security policy decision-making, Arctic issues, cutting-edge technology, and groups the Chinese government views as a threat. Finland’s NATO membership has further sharpened Beijing’s interest in Helsinki.
The report also flags the symbiotic Russia-China relationship as a compounding risk. During the Ukraine war, Moscow has adopted a more permissive stance toward Chinese presence in the Arctic — a development with direct strategic implications for Finland and the wider Nordic region.
On the cyber front, SUPO paints a sobering picture of China’s structural advantages. Beijing has used legislative obligations and financial incentives to integrate its education, research, and business sectors into a vast cyber ecosystem — industrialising the production of tools, skills, and vulnerabilities needed for state-sponsored operations at a speed and scale that Western democracies struggle to match.
Russia: The Threat That Will Outlast the War
SUPO warns that the end of the war in Ukraine will not diminish the Russian threat — it will redirect it. Russian resources currently concentrated on Ukraine will be freed for influence operations targeting other European nations, including Finland.
Tensions in the Baltic Sea are also rising, with SUPO flagging Russia’s shadow fleet of poorly insured tankers as a growing risk in busy Nordic shipping lanes.
The overview also addresses terrorism, critical minerals, AI-enhanced disinformation, and the security risks of cloud adoption — underlining that Finland’s threat landscape has expanded well beyond its eastern border.
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